Eleftherias Square is a central square in downtown Thessaloniki, Greece. It takes its name from the Young Turk Revolution, which began in the square in 1908. The square is currently a car park, but a public competition was launched by the Municipality of Thessaloniki in 2013 to select a design for its redevelopment into a park. Construction was initially expected to start in 2018 at a cost of €5.1 million.
Eleftherias Square on the waterfront
The State Conservatory (former Ottoman Bank) near the square.
Registration of the Jews by the Nazis in the square, July 1942.
Menorah in flames, the Holocaust memorial which was later moved to the square.
The Young Turk Revolution was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionaries belonging to the internal Committee of Union and Progress, an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the Constitution, recall the parliament, and schedule an election. Thus began the Second Constitutional Era.
Greek demonstration in Monastir in favour of the constitution
Enver Bey and Niyazi Bey from a postcard in 1908.
Postcard for the new constitution in Ottoman Turkish and French